


when we were young

by bisexual-killian-jones (aelover867)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, adoption fic, but not exactly what you think
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-07-25 07:36:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7524085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aelover867/pseuds/bisexual-killian-jones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma Swan had her life all sorted out: a beautiful son, a perfect job, and a loving, but intrusive sister. But when she suddenly received a call asking her about something she had tried to forget over the past eighteen years, Emma’s life was sent into a tailspin. And it forced her to realize that she just might have to find the very man she had sworn to forget about: Killian Jones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so this is something that i've been working on for a while and i thought it would be perfect to post for AU week, day four: complete au. it is not CS at the beginning, but it will be in future chapters. idk when it'll be finished or when the next chapter will be up, as i've only completed the first two chapters, when there will be several in this fic. but i thought i would post this. enjoy!!

Emma moaned in relief as she tugged off her heels. She planted her feet up on the coffee table as she relaxed into the leather sofa beneath her, allowing her feet to air out in the cool air conditioning of the hot September Friday. They had begun to dig into her feet not even an hour into her long day full of lectures, but Emma knew that Belle would comment on her not wearing the very heels they had gotten together the past weekend when Henry was over at Ingrid’s. She internally winced with every step she took across the campus, swearing that she’ll only wear these heels during the Tuesdays where she only had one class to teach.

Emma tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear as her stomach began to growl. This Friday had been busier than usual, her breaks filled with endless meetings and her office hours filled with confused freshmen and exhausted seniors. Her TA was out sick with allergies from the changing seasons and so Emma had to at least attempt to begin grading the papers that were slowly piling on her desk.

Which was why her shoulder was aching and why her leather tote was sitting on the floor with papers sticking out wildly.

She sighed as she reached for the remote, flipping on the television and swearing that she’d begin grading the next day. Henry was over at Avery’s for the night and he had a birthday party on Sunday, so Emma would have the apartment to herself for a decent amount of time. And even if Henry was there, she knew he’d force her to grade the papers.

Only God knew where he got his motivation from.

As Emma changed the channel to watch some rerun of _Say Yes To The Dress_ , her cell phone dinged. Emma looked at her phone and saw that it was a picture message from Henry, showing Emma that he was with Avery at his house. The two boys were making funny faces at the camera, sticking their tongues out and crossing their eyes. Emma laughed at the picture, glad that Henry had his friends in Boston, after moving there a few years previously. Deep down, Emma wished he had a sibling that he could’ve grown up with.

Then again, he could’ve. Then again, he did.

But Emma didn’t want to dwell on her past. She’d rather not remember the sharp cry of a baby boy and her refusing to hold him, knowing that she could not be a mother at the tender age of eighteen, when she did not even know how to love herself.

She didn’t want to remember the piercing blue eyes and the lilting British accent of the man who taught Emma about the possibility of love.

Emma shook her head, trying to free herself of the memories her past held. She already thought about them every night when her mind tricked her into dreaming about the future she could’ve had. But she loved the life she had now: a beautiful ten-year-old boy whom she loved more than anything, a career she actually enjoyed, and friends that reminded Emma that she didn’t need anybody else.

Emma stood from the couch and wandered over to the fridge in the kitchen, walking through the open room and grabbing her bottle of white wine. It had been a very long day for her and she just needed a large glass of wine to calm her mind. The stress from ungraded papers and numerous students begging for extensions on assignments and endless staff meetings about changes to the curriculum and new renovations and _no hogging the conference room_ —it was just all adding up in Emma’s mind and causing her to nearly go insane. It was causing her to remember the things she had tried to bury deep down in her mind.

She took a large gulp of her wine as she rested the half-full bottle on the counter. She’d empty the bottle by the end of the night, Emma was sure of it. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw flashes of those haunting eyes and that wide grin and _shit_ she would need more than just this bottle of wine to get through the night. It always was the stressful days that brought out the worst of Emma’s memories.

Well, not the worst. No, never the worst.

Just the most painful.

Emma walked back to the couch, plucking the bottle of wine from the counter and sipping generously on her glass, and relaxed back into the couch with her feet tucked under her. She watched the women find their perfect dresses and cry over the bitchy family members that don’t know when to keep their mouths shut. Her feet rested on the coffee table, sticking to the random papers strewn there from work and some random pieces from Henry’s school. Buttercup, her trusty Maltese, hopped up onto her lap from where she must’ve been sleeping in Emma’s bedroom, just as she did every day when Emma left for work. Emma stroked the dog’s soft fur, allowing the four-year-old dog to rest comfortably in her lap.

With her trusty wine and her favorite pet, Emma felt as though the night would be perfect.

But then her phone rang.

Emma picked up her cell phone as it chimed loudly. It startled Buttercup, who had fallen asleep on her lap, and the dog stared at it curiously. Emma furrowed her eyebrows as she read the number, not recognizing it or the area code. But it wasn’t out of the ordinary for Emma to receive calls from unfamiliar numbers, since many cities and universities from all over the world had contacted her to ask for her to visit and speak to the criminal justice professionals there.

Plus side of being constantly sought out in her field: traveling to London and Miami and Seattle and Vancouver and so many other places.

Down side: never getting a moment of goddamn quiet.

Emma swiped her screen after placing her glass on the coffee table. “Hello?”

“Is this Emma Swan?” An unfamiliar male voice asked.

“Yes,” Emma responded, leaning back against the couch with her eyebrows furrowed. She noted that it was strange that the man didn’t mention ‘Dr.’ when he addressed her. The calls for her to visit some random city _always_ addressed her as Dr. Emma Swan.

“My name is Archie Hopper and I’m looking for someone, so I’m sorry if I’m interrupting something.”

“You’re not interrupting anything. I hope I can help,” Emma replied, admitting that this was one of the strangest calls she had ever received.

She heard a breathless chuckle over the line. “This may be a strange question, but here it is. Did you by chance give birth to a baby boy eighteen years ago in Augusta, Maine?”

And Emma’s heart froze.

She couldn’t _breathe_.

And the very same memories that Emma was trying to drown in wine were coming back with a vengeance. She remembered the pain of the labor she went through with Ingrid and Elsa by her side, her heart breaking when the baby was taken out of the room without her so much as glancing at him, her working out as much as possible to return to her previous shape in order to forget the whole thing ever happened.

She remembered the ink black hair as it ran through her fingers and the waggle of his eyebrows and the way his beard burned as it scratched her neck and the way he looked almost angelic in the pale moonlight.

She remembered maybe being in love. _Almost_ being in love.

Until he left.

(They always left.)

“I-I-you have the wrong number.”

And Emma hung up the phone, throwing it to the other half of the sectional couch and gripping her wine glass tightly in her hands. She finished the half-full glass in a single pull and filled it up eagerly, drinking the glass without pause. She continued this until the bottle was completely gone and she was left with just her swirling and restless thoughts.

She couldn’t be alone, not right now. Emma saw that it was only half-past six, which meant that Elsa would just be arriving home. She stood up, pushing Buttercup off her lap as the dog groaned in protest, and hurried to find any pair of shoes that were not heels. She wobbled around a bit as she found a pair of orange flip flops (which did not go with her black pencil skirt and dark red blouse, but who gave a shit), and it only took her a few minutes to grab the things she needed to head over to her sister’s apartment.

While she felt bad about leaving Buttercup alone again after being gone all day, Emma just needed her sister’s company. Elsa was by her side through everything—from the very beginning of that summer when she introduced Emma to the man that changed her world, to the final moments of that painful labor. Elsa remembered the pain that the pregnancy had caused Emma, coming to the conclusion that she could not take care of this baby and that adoption would be the baby’s best chance at a perfect life.

Even though Emma believed she wouldn’t have been able to achieve many of the things she had if she had kept the baby, Emma regretted the decision every day.

Emma hurried to the sidewalk for the short walk to Elsa’s apartment and shot off a quick text to Elsa, telling her that Emma was coming over and that she should have a very large glass of wine ready for when she arrived. Honestly, Emma needed an entire box of wine, but she would take what she could get. She just needed to drown her memories and thoughts and _he’s searching for her_ -

It didn’t take long for Emma to arrive at the locked gate that led to Elsa’s apartment building. She tapped in the code she had memorized years ago, when Elsa moved to Boston to follow Emma and Henry. She hurried through the courtyard, following the concrete path to the front doors of the building, and sincerely hoped that Elsa had that glass of wine ready. She just wanted to drown herself in alcohol and forget the call and try to continue on like life was normal.

But life had never been normal for Emma Swan.

She hurried through the front door and up the stairs just past the mailboxes, skipping every other step to head up to the second floor. Her heart pounded from the mental and physical exertion of the night and she would need a week’s worth of sleep after all of this was said and done. Her heart hammered against her chest as Emma arrived at Elsa’s door and swung it open, rushing into her sister’s apartment and slamming the door behind her. Straight down the hallway, Emma could see Elsa standing in her gray business suit, a full glass of red wine in her hand.

It took Emma two seconds to cross the hallway and take the glass from Elsa’s hand, drinking it as quickly as she could without a breath.

“What’s going on, Emma?” Elsa asked, her hands crossed over her chest while Emma finished off the glass. “You’re worrying me.”

“Please.”

“The last time you drank this much was when you thought you fucked up your dissertation defense and drank a solid two bottles of wine by yourself,” Elsa explained as Emma circled around Elsa to the counter, where the half-full empty bottle of wine sat. Emma eagerly poured another glass and gulped it down yet again. “Jesus Christ, Emma, slow down.”

Emma placed the now-empty glass back down onto the counter, planting her hands on the cool marble and wishing that she could just go to sleep for the next year or however long it would take to forget about the call that flipped her entire world. Her head was beginning to throb from the alcohol in her system and she pressed her hand against her forehead, feeling the heat radiating from her entire body.

“Emma,” Elsa spoke as she stepped over to Emma, her black heels clacking against the hardwood floor. “Just talk to me. What’s going on? You sounded fine on the phone today during the two seconds I got to talk to you.”

Emma tried to take deep breaths to keep her head from swimming from the alcohol and the news from the day that _her son was looking for her_. Her hands began to feel clammy as she pressed them against her warm face and Emma noticed that they were beginning to shake. The news that her son (her _first_ son) was looking for her was something that Emma had never expected. She thought she would go through her life without knowing what happened to the black-haired baby that she gave up for adoption over eighteen years ago.

(Eighteen years, four months, and three days ago.)

“Emma, you’re shaking,” Elsa said, alarm evident in her tone. She wrapped her an arm around Emma’s back and helped her to the nearby couch, only a few feet from the small kitchen. Elsa sat beside Emma on the soft, suede couch and kept her arm around Emma’s shoulders. Emma’s body continued to shake, the nerves of the call and the thought of her past catching up to her were taking a toll on her body. She was terrified of the thought that the son she gave up all those years ago wanted to meet her, reminding her of the man she almost loved until he left.

(She wondered if he looked like the man who gave her hope for the future for once in her life.)

(She hoped he didn’t.)

“Please talk to me,” Elsa spoke after a few minutes of them sitting silently together. Emma’s shaking had lessened, but her hands continued to quake. “What is all of this about? You’re acting like you’ve seen a ghost.” Elsa dramatically gasped and grabbed her chest. “Did you see _Neal_?”

“No,” Emma responded immediately, looking over at her sister. “God, no.”

“Then talk to me,” Elsa repeated, crossing her leg over her knee and squeezing Emma’s shoulder.

Emma sighed and looked down at her hands, watching them twisting together nervously. It was these very same hands that held his and held his face and traced the outline of his face in the moonlight on that beach all those years ago-

“Do you remember that thing that happened when I was eighteen?” Emma asked as she stared at her hands.

“Of course. You had a baby. The nurse said you almost broke my fingers during labor when you squeezed too hard,” Elsa replied and Emma snorted as she looked over at Elsa.

“Well, I got a call from a man and he asked me the most curious question,” Emma explained and Elsa began to nod, her blue eyes wide. “He asked me if I had given birth to a baby boy when I was eighteen.”

Elsa’s jaw dropped slightly. “Emma-”

“He’s searching for me, Elsa,” Emma told her sister, tears threatening her eyes. “My son—Henry’s brother—is looking for me and I don’t know what to do.”

“Emma,” Elsa spoke as she tugged Emma into her arms, allowing Emma’s head to rest on her shoulder as Emma began to cry. Elsa had witnessed the heartache the pregnancy and adoption had caused Emma. She saw how Emma threw herself into exercise after the birth of the child, as if she could forget about the baby if she lost the weight she had gained. She saw how Emma couldn’t sleep, terrified of the nightmares that plagued her, telling her that the adoption was a mistake and she ruined everything and how could she does this to her own child.

She saw how Emma mourned over the love that left and the love she refused to keep.

“I mean, how can I face him after all these years, Elsa?” Emma asked, lifting her head from Elsa’s shoulder and wiping at the tears that continued to fall. “I regret that decision every day and what if he sees everything I have and gets angry because I have this life because I put him up for adoption? And what if he sees that I have Henry and gets angry because I didn’t keep him? What if-”

“Emma, Emma, Emma,” Elsa spoke, tightening her arm around Emma’s shoulder as Emma leaned her head on her shoulder again. “Don’t think about the ‘what if’s. Don’t do that to yourself. You just have to accept the fact that he’s looking for you. It was inevitable. Did you really think that he would want to go through life without wanting to find his biological mother?”

“Yes. Because I thought putting him up for adoption would give him a better life than I had and he wouldn’t want to go looking for me, because he already had his family and he didn’t need to know,” Emma explained immediately, sitting up and scooting to the far end of the couch. “Maybe I thought that he wouldn’t even know he was adopted. That his parents just never told him. And even if I did expect it, I didn’t think it would happen so shortly after his eighteenth birthday.”

“Well, you already know what I think about all of this,” Elsa replied, reaching back to her hair and untangled her bun, allowing her long blonde hair to fall over her shoulders.

Emma sighed. “You think I should meet him.”

“Of course I do,” Elsa responded, arranging herself in a position matching Emma’s. “Just as you said, you’ve regretted putting him up for adoption all this time. I think if you meet him, it’ll help you realize it was the best choice. You won’t know until you meet him, Emma.”

“But what if he’s angry at me, Elsa? What if he had the life I had, never being adopted and moving from place to place because no one loved him?” Emma asked, her voice quiet as she wiped away the last of her tears.

Elsa sighed and folded her hands on her lap. “You have to forgive yourself for all of this, Emma. You can’t keep blaming yourself for all of this. You have to understand that you did what you thought was best for him. I’m sure he understands that. You just have to forgive yourself because I’m sure he already has.”

Emma’s jaw clenched as she looked down at her hands, tangled together on her crossed-legs. “Elsa, there’s one thing we haven’t considered.” Emma looked back up at her sister, who stared at her with concern in her eyes. “What if he wants to meet his father?”

Elsa let out a long breath, a low whistle through her lips. “Well, then you’re gonna have to face him. If your son wants to meet his father, you’re gonna have to do it. And I know that’s a touchy subject, but he deserves to know.”

“The son or the father?” Emma whispered quietly, allowing herself to consider even the idea of finding the man who left.

(The one she still thought of every night, when the moonlight broke through the curtains in her bedroom and she thought back to the night where everything changed.)

“Both. Both deserve to know.”

<> 

Emma had a restless night when she returned home. It wasn’t even an hour after her conversation with Elsa that Emma returned back to her apartment, trying to go back to her utterly normal life after her world flipped. She had gone straight to bed, Buttercup cuddling right next to her the entire night, but Emma couldn’t find sleep. While Buttercup slept deeply next to her, half under the blanket because Buttercup liked to think she was human, Emma stared up at the ceiling. Her thoughts wouldn’t stop running through her head, reminding her of those summer days spent by the beach with a boy with sparkling blue eyes and a wide grin that gave her heart palpitations. Ever since that summer, Emma had never stopped thinking about the boy who changed her life, goosebumps raising as she remembered the way his hand pressed against her lower back whenever they walked down the street together and the way his tongue trailed against his lower lip whenever she wore that one low-cut top.

She remembered the butterflies that filled her stomach whenever he so much as glanced her way, and even how she feels those butterflies when she remembered the intensity that swam in his eyes.

She remembered the way his beard and tongue felt against her that night, so long ago.

Emma had sighed and turned to her phone, doing exactly what she did on sleepless nights like these. She had looked up the man that changed her life: Killian Jones. And still, she had found the exact same things she always did.

Only his LinkedIn profile, without a picture to match the description of his accomplishments.

Emma had sighed, even though she could see that he was pursuing his dream of becoming a graphic designer. She had smiled, remembering the days he spent sketching her as she laid out on the rocky beach of Storybrooke, Maine and the long talks they had at night about what they wanted in life. He had always talked about becoming a graphic designer, earning money doing what he loved. Emma had talked about doing something with the criminal justice system, but not quite sure what and had always repeated her doubts of even getting into college.

But Killian Jones had always reiterated his belief in her, even though he had only known her for three short months.

And now, Emma was sitting on her couch, staring at her recent call list at the unfamiliar number that had called her the night before. She had been sitting there for the past few minutes, trying to gather the courage to call Archie Hopper back. She had to tell him that he had the right woman, that she had indeed given birth to a baby boy eighteen years ago in Augusta, Maine.

And a day didn’t go by where she didn’t think of that little baby.

“Hey, Mom,” Henry’s voice called to her from the front door as it slammed behind him. Emma nearly jumped out of her skin, not realizing that it was almost one and Henry was expected to be home at any minute.

“Jesus Christ, you scared me, kid,” Emma spoke as she stood up from the couch, turning around to face her ten-year-old son.

“No need to be formal, Mom,” Henry teased, dropping his backpack onto the floor beside the couch. “How was your night?”

Emma let out a breathless chuckle as she stepped forward and hugged Henry. “Eventful, to say the least.”

“Why?” Henry asked as his head pulled away from chest (and her son was getting so tall). His eyebrows furrowed and suddenly, he looked like Neal and it twisted her heart. “What happened? Your nights are dull without me.”

Emma snorted as she draped her arm over Henry’s shoulder, steering him over to the couch and sitting him down next to her. “You sound so sure of yourself.”

“Mo-o-o-om. Come on. Spill.”

Emma sighed and ran her hand through Henry’s longish hair, noticing that he really needed a haircut before it got too unruly. “Henry, this is a really big thing. I need you to know that before you hear it and think differently of me.”

“I can’t think differently of you, Mom,” Henry responded honestly, his face softening at her tone. “What is it?”

Emma sighed again and pushed her knotted hair back from her face. “Last night, I received a call, asking me about something that happened long before you were born. Eighteen years ago, to be exact.” Henry nodded in encouragement. “Henry, the man asked me about a baby boy who was born eighteen years ago.”

Henry’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Why would he ask you about that?”

Emma took a deep breath as she rested her hand on the back on Henry’s neck. “Henry, when I was seventeen, I met a boy over the summer, when I was in Storybrooke at Grandma Ingrid’s summer cottage with her and Elsa and Anna. And we hung out every day when I got off of work from Grandma Ingrid’s ice cream shop and we had a lot of fun together. And he left when the summer was over to go back home to England to go to college and nine months later, I had a son.”

Henry’s eyes widened as his jaw dropped. “What?”

Emma nodded. “I had a little boy and I put him up for adoption because I wasn’t ready to be a mother, not when I was eighteen and in high school. And I never thought that he would even want to find me, but this call from last night tells me that he’s looking for me. And I wanted you to know before I decided to call the man back, or completely ignore that I ever received the call.”

“You have to call him back, Mom,” Henry replied immediately, resituating himself beside Emma to angle toward her.

“Henry, if you need time to think it over—”

Henry shook his head as he interrupted her. “No, no, no. You _have_ to call him back. It’ll be so cool to have an older brother!”

“Henry, what if he’s angry at me for putting him up for adoption? What if he sees you and gets angry because I couldn’t be a mother to him, but I could be for you?”

“You have to believe, Mom. It’ll all work out. I’m sure of it!” Henry replied, picking up her phone from the coffee table in front of them. He held it out to Emma with his eyes lit up. “Call him.”

Emma took her phone from Henry’s hand with a sigh, scrolling through the recent calls on her phone and finding the one from last night. As she took a deep breath, she hit the number and the phone began ringing on the other end. Her heart was tight in her chest, the nerves squeezing it in a tight grip. The phone continued to ring and just before Emma gave up on ever contacting the man between her and the son she gave up, the phone picked up.

“Archie Hopper,” The man spoke over the phone.

“Hello, Archie. It’s Emma Swan, from the phone last night,” Emma began, Henry smiling encouragingly from his spot beside her.

“Oh yes, Emma Swan. How are you?”

“I’m fine. Actually, I’m calling back because I’m sorry about how I responded on the phone last night,” Emma spoke. “You just caught me off guard and I panicked.”

“That’s all right. It happens more often than you’d think.”

Emma laughed under her breath. “About the question you asked me last night, I realized I never answered you. And I had to call you back to tell you that I am the woman you’re looking for.”

Emma heard the creaking of a chair in the background of the phone call. “Are you saying that you gave birth to a baby boy eighteen years ago in Augusta, Maine?”

Emma swallowed back a knot in her throat. “Yes, I am.”

“Oh that’s fantastic!” Archie said excitedly over the phone. “Well, I’m here to tell you that your son is searching for you and, if you’re up for it, he’d like to meet you.”

Emma took a deep breath, glancing over at Henry. Henry smiled at her and it gave her the strength to say those words. “I’m up for it. I want to meet him.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello everyone! i hope y'all are still interested in the story and are as excited about it as i am. my muse has been working hard on this story. i've just finished the fourth chapter and will hopefully write more of it soon, so im hoping the updates won't be too far in between. this chapter isn't too long, but hopefully it'll tide you over until the next chapter is up. enjoy!

She learned as much as she could about her unknown son.

Archie answered any and all questions that she had, at least to the best of his own knowledge. Archie gave Emma his personal cell phone number, telling her that it was absolutely okay for her to text him or call him if she had any future questions. Emma texted Archie random questions that she was sure he wouldn’t know the answer to about her son, but he always texted back quickly with an answer, which led Emma to believe that he was in close contact with the son she gave up so many years ago.

Emma learned that his name was Charlie.

Emma learned that Charlie was adopted when he was a week old by the Nolan’s.

Emma learned that Charlie was a straight-A student in every grade and was quite the drawer.

(Emma tucked that piece of knowledge deep into her mind, counting that as one similarity with his father.)

She also learned that he was a freshman at Boston University, the very same place where she taught, majoring in graphic design.

(Yet another similarity with his father.)

With the knowledge that her son— _ Charlie _ —was so close, Emma’s heart froze. Her niggling fears about meeting him reared their ugly heads. She was so sure that he would be angry with her for putting him up for adoption, when she went on to have another child and kept him. She was positive that Charlie would hate her, would want nothing to do with her just as she chose not to have anything to do with him. Emma wasn’t sure how she would explain herself to him, even though she wanted him to know that it wasn’t like that. She wanted to keep him more than anything in her young life, but she also knew that putting him up for adoption would give him his best chance at the life she never had.

And from what Archie had told her, Emma knew it was the correct decision.

And when Archie called her two weeks after their very first phone call, telling her that Charlie wished to meet her as soon as her schedule permitted, Emma swallowed back the knot in her throat and reiterated what she had told Archie that Saturday two weeks ago.

She would meet Charlie.

She would meet Charlie in exactly one week, at a bench at BU Beach.

After the meeting was set, Emma’s mind changed between wanting to call Archie to cancel the meeting and just blissful acceptance that she would finally be meeting the baby she gave up all those years ago. Henry helped her through her waves of indecision, encouraging Emma and reminding her that this was the right decision. And every time Emma looked into Henry’s eyes, she knew it was indeed the right decision. Her kid deserved a brother—something she never thought she would ever be able to give him.

And Emma could see that Henry was more than excited about the prospect of a sibling. When Henry wasn’t assuring Emma that she should meet Charlie because it was the right thing to do, Henry flounced around ideas for sibling nights, where the two of them just played video games and ate pizza, just the two of them when Emma was gone on one of her relatively frequent trips across the country or world. And she loved that he was so excited about Charlie. Deep down, it had been another fear of Emma’s, that Henry would find out she had had another son before him and he would be angry with her for allowing the baby to slip through her fingers. But that fear had been fruitless, as Henry had always been happy being an only child and was already surrounded by close friends—something that Emma was always so proud of him for finding at such a young age.

As the days grew closer, Emma found herself unable to focus on anything. Her students’ assignments were beginning to accumulate on her desk, both at home and in her office at school. Whenever she sat down to begin grading them, her mind would drift off to the baby she heard screaming that day, with lungs as powerful as an opera singer. And through that train of thought, Emma would pull up Google and type in the name ‘Killian Jones.’ Lists of links would pull up, but none ever yielded much. Only his LinkedIn profile, yet again, which did show a promising email address.

She should tell him.

She should  _ definitely _ tell him.

But Emma would always shake her head, closing out of the browser and leaving her desk to find something else to keep her mind occupied. She had been sure that she would never need to contact the man she had never stopped thinking about, that there would never be any excuse for it. But now, with Charlie’s meeting edging closer and closer, Emma knew that she should tell him.  _ She had to tell him _ . She had to confess to Killian Jones that she had kept a secret from him for eighteen years. She had to confess that they were still talking when she had found out—when he was back in England and going to school and Emma was back in Augusta in her final year of high school—and that was why she ceased all communication with him.

She had to confess that she ached for his hand in hers when her ( _ their _ ) son entered the world and was immediately taken away to his new family.

But no, Emma wouldn’t do it. Even though she had to confront the child she gave up, she wouldn’t confront the man that left.

She couldn’t.

<>

“Tomorrow’s the big day, isn’t it?” Elsa asked as she poured red wine into the glass in front of Emma’s plate.

Emma nodded, pushing a piece of steamed broccoli around her plate as Henry eagerly ate his grilled chicken. “It is.”

“You nervous?” Elsa asked as she turned to her own glass, pouring it halfway and then placing the bottle back onto the island behind the kitchen table.

Emma took a deep breath as she speared the broccoli. “No.”

Henry snorted at his place on Emma’s left at the four-top table, his mouth full of half-chewed chicken and rice pilaf. “Yeah, she is.”

“Henry,” Emma spoke sternly as she looked over at him.

“What? You are,” Henry replied, then looked back at his aunt Elsa. “She paces around all of the time. She mutters about calling Archie back to cancel the meeting. I’ve had to talk her down from the ledge at least twenty times in the past three days.”

“ _ Henry _ .”

“Sorry, Mom.”

“Why are you so nervous?” Elsa asked as she took her seat again and picked up her fork to spear her chicken. “I thought this was what you wanted.”

Emma sighed and relaxed in her seat with her arms crossed over her chest. She stared at the bunching of her blazer around her elbows as she chewed on the inside of her cheek. She didn’t want to lay all of her cards on the table, so to speak. She didn’t need help. She would deal with her anxiety on her own, even though what Henry said was true. Emma didn’t need her sister to repeat the same things that Emma herself had been telling herself since she set the date to meet Charlie.

“It is. I’m fine, Elsa,” Emma spoke, looking up at her sister’s worried, bright blue eyes. “We’re meeting tomorrow at three at BU Beach. I’ll be wearing my red jacket and he’ll be wearing green Converse sneakers. Everything will go fine.”

“Is that you assuring me or is that you assuring yourself?” Elsa asked and  _ damn her and her freaking psychologist stare. _

“Elsa.”

“I’m just saying, Emma,” Elsa replied, shrugging.

“I’m  _ fine _ , Elsa. I can handle it,” Emma repeated.

Elsa sighed and glanced over at her nephew, who was continuing to shovel food into his mouth. “Henry, would you like to go to my bedroom and watch some TV? I’d like to talk to your mother alone for just a moment.”

Henry nodded as he scooted out from his chair, grabbing his plate as he stood from his chair. “Okay.”

Henry quietly walked past the couch in the living area, and through the bedroom door, against the far wall of the apartment. Emma sighed as she looked at her sister, already aware of where this conversation was going. Even though Emma was adopted at the tender age of twelve into Ingrid’s family, where Elsa became her sister, Emma knew that look. She had seen it when Emma hid a failing grade from Ingrid or when Emma snuck out the night before to go see Killian during that summer.

She had seen it when Emma was hiding the fact that she had missed her period and she had no idea what to do.

“Please don’t pull the psychologist shit on me, Elsa,” Emma begged once she heard the door close behind Henry.

“I won’t. But I’ll pull the sister shit on you,” Elsa replied, sitting forward in her chair and pushing her plate away from her to fold her arms on the table. “Why are you freaking out?”

“Elsa,  _ please _ —”

“No. Stop running away from your issues. Why are you freaking out?”

“Elsa, seriously I’m not gonna talk about it. Just leave it be,” Emma replied with her teeth clenching. “I will be fine. I will handle it. I just need a good night’s sleep and my normal coffee tomorrow and I’ll be okay. If I’m not, then you can gladly tell me ‘you should’ve talked about it.’ But right now, I just don’t want to. Okay?”

“You gonna tell Killian?”

Emma sighed and groaned at the same time, dropping her head against the back of her chair. “Elsa,  _ I will take care of it _ . Please, just leave it be.”

“He deserves to know, Emma—”

“Dammit, Elsa, I know!” Emma exclaimed as she slammed her hand on the wooden table, looking back at her sister across the table. “I know that he deserves to know. I will do it when I’m good and ready.”

“And you haven’t been ready for the past eighteen years?” Elsa asked, with her arms now crossed firmly over her chest. “You should’ve told him immediately, and now it’s going to be much worse when he does find out because he’ll know you kept this secret from him for so long.”

“I know how you feel about it, Elsa. I recall those conversations from when I was pregnant. Just let me fucking deal with it on my own, alright? Give me time. And who knows, Charlie may not even care about knowing his father.”

Elsa raised her eyebrows and Emma knew that that last statement was a far shot. If Charlie wanted to meet his biological mother, he more than likely would want to meet his biological father. But a part of Emma was still hoping that he wouldn’t care to meet him, that she would be enough for him.

(But she never was.)

“I’m gonna head out,” Emma spoke as she scooted from her chair, the chair scraping loudly against the hardwood floor. “I have papers I really need to begin grading before I get emails from students and parents about the lack of grades.”

“Emma—”

“I’ll call you after the meeting tomorrow, if I’m up for it,” Emma spoke, not looking over at her sister as she walked to the island beside the table and grabbed her purse. “Henry, it’s time to go!”

A few moments later, Henry exited Elsa’s bedroom, looking rather sheepish. Emma realized that he must’ve heard her outburst at Elsa, given that Emma wasn’t exactly quiet about it. When Henry reached the kitchen table and placed his now-empty plate, Emma wrapped her arm over his shoulder to soothe him and said “goodbye” over her shoulder to Elsa, who remained at the kitchen table. Other than that simple word, Emma and Henry exited the apartment silently and Emma’s thoughts drifted back to the anxiety surrounding the big meeting tomorrow.

And that night, when Emma found herself unable to sleep, she sat at the desk in her bedroom, staring at the LinkedIn page for Killian Jones. She stared at the email address there, nearly clicking on it several times over. She knew she had to tell him. He deserved to know, just as Elsa had said. And even though Emma knew she had to tell him, she knew he would be angry, and rightfully so. But, even after eighteen years, Emma still held some love for the boy she met that summer. She didn’t want to experience his anger, even if she deserved it. She wanted him to be happy, even if it meant keeping him in the dark. She didn’t want to ruin his life simply because she didn’t have the nerve to tell him eighteen years ago.

So, reluctantly, Emma closed out of the browser at three in the morning, after staring at the screen for the past three hours, and crawled back into her bed, where she remained sleepless.

<>

“Are you alright, Emma?” Belle asked and Emma is pulled from her thoughts, staring at her computer screen and she honestly had no idea when Belle showed up.

“What—oh yeah, I’m fine,” Emma replied as she looked over at her open door, where Belle stood in those ridiculously high heels of hers.

Belle pursed her lips as she stepped into Emma’s office, her hands folded in front of her with a stack of manila folders bursting at the seams. Her gentle eyes stared at Emma and Emma suddenly felt as though Belle could sniff the secret right out of her.

“You’ve been distant for the past few weeks. You’re not alright,” Belle astutely stated in her Australian accent. “You know you can talk to me if you need to, right?”

Emma let out a deep breath and nodded. “I know. A lot of stuff is going on. I’m fine, Belle. Really.”

“Will’s been saying that you don’t spend much time in your office anymore,” Belle spoke and Emma sighed.

“Fucking Scarlet,” Emma grumbled under her breath about the man who occupied the office directly across from her. Of course he’d spill those details to his wife. Emma rubbed her eyes as she glanced down at the clock on her computer. 2:28. “I’m fine, Belle. Seriously. But I gotta head out right now anyways.”

Belle sighed and looked dejected, which made Emma feel sorry. She wanted to talk to her friend about all of this, but Emma also didn’t want to risk something so personal to get out. Emma would tell Belle later, when things were more figured out. She didn’t want to tempt fate by telling her friend about all of this before even meeting the son she gave up all those years ago. It would wait.

“We’ll get lunch or something next week, okay?” Emma spoke as she heaved the strap of her bag onto her shoulder and dropped her cell phone into the pocket of her red leather jacket.

“Of course. Have a nice weekend,” Belle replied with a smile as she waved and exited Emma’s office just in front of Emma.

As she locked her office door and marched out of the exit of the building, Emma’s thoughts went blank. From the nerves of the upcoming meeting with Charlie and the anxiety of all of the homework she had to grade, Emma’s mind just shut off from the stress of it all. At this point, she had worried enough about everything that her brain just decided that enough was enough. So, Emma walked thoughtlessly to the large park dubbed BU Beach and sat on a bench near the large metal sculpture there. Behind her, a busy road interrupted the silence of the green pasture. And after that road laid the Charles River, drifting slowly on this early autumn day.

She just allowed herself to listen to the rushing cars and to the conversations of the people who also chose to relax at BU Beach. There were countless students lying in the grass around her, talking with their friends or studying for whatever homework they may have. They were all utterly clueless to the fact that Emma’s life was going to change forever in just a few short minutes. It was just an average day to everyone else at this grassy knoll. To Emma, this day would be remembered forever. She clasped her hands together on her lap and they twisted together nervously. It seemed as though her nerves weren’t even being caused by her thoughts anymore. Her nerves had settled into her bones and muscles, causing her to shake even though she wasn’t even thinking anything anymore.

Emma stared down at her hands, taking deep breaths to steady her pounding heart. She couldn’t help but be nervous about the meeting. She knew it could go about twenty different ways, but she couldn’t help but attempt to prepare for the worst of them. Emma expected Charlie to yell at her, to ask her why she had to give him up all those years ago. And honestly, Emma thought she deserved it. She didn’t think she deserved happiness after giving him up, even though she was young and knew she had to do it to give him his best chance.

And what if he wasn’t angry with her? What if Charlie truly wanted to know his biological mother?

Emma didn’t know if she was prepared for that, especially if he asked questions about his biological father. She knew that if their meeting went that route, he was bound to ask about his father. But Emma knew she would not be ready for that, no matter how long it took for Charlie to ask her about him. Sure, she still remembered every little thing about Killian Jones. But it was a different thing to actually tell someone about him, rehashing those old wounds and scars.

Oh man, she was not ready for this.

A thought sprang into her head that she didn’t have to do this. She could just leave. There was still a few minutes before it was three and she had plenty of time to leave, to forget that this had ever happened. She could block Archie’s phone number and try to forget that she was a coward.

But before she could even react to her thought, a voice called to her.

“Dr. Emma Swan?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: sorry for the really long wait. after i posted the last chapter, i hit a bad wall with my writing and i finally finished the chapter i was stuck on. so i thought i'd post this one today. it isn't very long at all, but Emma finally meets her son! so it's exciting! enjoy!

The voice startled Emma for a moment and she had to gather the strength to turn her head to find the person behind the voice. Her heart pounded against her ribs and she took a deep breath, turning her head to look at the voice’s origin. And she gasped at the man who stood before her. Tears built behind her eyes as she took in the blue eyes and the wild black hair, as if he continuously ran his hand through his hair.

He was Killian’s clone, save for his clean shaven face.

(Of course he was.)

“A-are you Dr. Emma Swan?” He asked, his voice shaking with nerves and his hands tight around the strap of his khaki messenger bag.

“You’re Charlie,” Emma spoke numbly as she stood from the bench. She couldn’t believe this. She wanted to run from anything that reminded her of Killian and the choices she made back when she was young. And just in confronting one of those very choices, she was reminded of the way she shut Killian out of her life as soon as she found out about her pregnancy.

Charlie nodded and let out a soft chuckle and Emma’s heart lurched because  _ oh my god he was Killian _ . She clasped her hand over her mouth in shock because Emma never expected Charlie to be a carbon copy of the man she tried to forget from all those years ago. Charlie met her eyes and in just a moment, he dropped his bag by the legs of the bench and enveloped Emma in a tight hug. His face burrowed into Emma’s neck as her nose pressed into his shoulder. The only refuge from Killian’s memories was that Charlie smelled of paint, as if he had been spending too many hours in the design building.

Killian had smelled of the sea.

Emma’s eyes slid shut as her arms tightened around Charlie as he began to shake with cries. Emma found that she did not care if Charlie’s tears stained her jacket. She was just glad that she had chosen to stay to meet the child she had given up years ago. Because now that he was there, Emma did not want to let him go.

Even if he forced her to remember the man she almost loved.

They stood like that for a long while. It could have been seconds or minutes or possibly even hours, just simply holding each other and rocking with the silent music in their heads. Emma didn’t know if people were glancing their way, but she found that she didn’t care. She had her little boy back, the one she had wanted to keep so desperately but knew that she couldn’t. She allowed her cheek to rest against Charlie’s and she ran her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. The small motion reminded her of the summer days spent at Killian’s side, running her hand through his too-long hair and wondering how he could handle the heat with his hair like that.

Charlie’s fingers relaxed against Emma’s back as he began to pull away. Emma allowed him to separate from her, ignoring the itch in her fingers to pull him back and to never let him go. He stood to his full height while keeping his eyes on the ground, wiping at his tear-soaked eyes. Emma ran her hand through the bangs that fell over his forehead and Charlie sniffled softly, his free hand gently holding onto Emma’s forearm.

“Sorry,” Charlie mumbled as he dropped his hand and lifted his head up to look at Emma. She was stunned yet again by just how much he looked like Killian.

“Don’t apologize.”

“I’ve just wanted to meet you for so long and now that it’s happening--”

“You were overcome with emotion,” Emma finished his sentence and Charlie nodded. “I understand. To be honest, I was afraid of meeting you. But now that you’re here…” Emma trailed off and gripped Charlie’s hands. “I don’t want to let you go again.”

Charlie nodded and removed his hands from Emma’s, moving to sit at the bench at their side. Emma followed his movement and sat beside him, leaving enough space between the two of them to keep him comfortable. She clasped her hands over her lap and looked over at her oldest son, wondering how Killian was doing across the pond.

(She needed to tell him.)

Charlie leaned over his legs, propping his elbows on his knees as he looked out at the lawn in front of them. He was silent for a while, just staring at the people who mingled on the grass or walked past. Emma looked down at her hands, wondering what the hell they do next. Sure, they had made a bit of a scene during their hug. But now? What do they do?

“This is a little awkward,” Charlie commented, laughing under his breath and Emma looked up to see him looking over at her. “Where do we begin?”

Emma laughed and replied honestly, “I was just thinking that very thing.”

“How old are you?” Charlie asked. “I know it’s bad form to ask someone how old they are, but my parents didn’t tell me much about you.”

_ Bad form _ .

Oh God, he was so much like Killian.

Emma swallowed back the knot in her throat as her hands tightened around each other. “I’m 36. I was eighteen when I gave birth to you.”

“You were my age?”

Emma nodded and she could see that Charlie was having a hard time imagining having a child at his age. She wondered if this was when he would ask her about giving him up, about why he wasn’t good enough for her to keep.

She would need a drink or five to get through that.

“Do I have any siblings?” Charlie asked and Emma could hear a hint of excitement in his voice.

Emma smiled and took a deep breath, relieved that they were going to avoid that topic of conversation for now. “You have a little brother.”

Charlie smiled widely and said, “Really?”

Emma nodded. “His name is Henry and he’s ten. He was actually very excited to hear that he had an older brother.”

“What does he like to do?”

Emma shrugged. “Play video games. Read. Stay at his friend’s house. Normal ten-year-old things.”

“Wow,” Charlie said simply, looking out at the lawn again. “I have a blood brother.”

Emma wanted to tell him that Henry was only a half-brother. But she didn’t want to risk bringing up the topic of Charlie’s own father. Or even Henry’s father. Neither were things she wanted to delve into at this moment, or ever. Besides, Emma didn’t want to risk Charlie losing that smile that seemed to be tattooed on his face.

“Do you have siblings?” Emma asked Charlie, crossing her legs at the knees.

Charlie nodded as he looked back to Emma, relaxing back against the bench. “Yeah. Mom and Dad adopted Amanda when I was five. She’s sixteen now. And then they had Shawn when I was ten, so he’s eight now.”

“Do you get along with them?”

Charlie shrugged and Emma laughed under her breath. “Sometimes, I guess. We don’t  _ fight _ , but me and Amanda argue sometimes.”

“That’ll get better. I fought with my sister until we went our separate ways at college,” Emma replied, moving to shrug off her leather jacket to relieve herself from the heat. “We just needed time and space apart from each other.”

“I have an aunt?”

Emma nodded. “Elsa and Anna. I was adopted into their family when I was twelve. Elsa lives here, in Boston, but Anna lives back with Ingrid, my adoptive mother and their aunt, in Maine.”

“My parents live in Maine too,” Charlie spoke, his eyes squinting against the brightness of the sun. “In this little town called Storybrooke.”

Emma gasped and nearly clasped her hand over her mouth. Storybrooke. The Nolan’s.  _ Oh no _ . “You’re from Storybrooke?”

Charlie furrowed his eyebrows. “You know the town?”

Emma nodded and tried to ignore the rush of memories of the small coastal town. “Yeah. I spent my summers there. You know Any Given Sundae?”

Charlie smiled as he nodded. “Oh yeah. They have the greatest rocky road ice cream, but they’re only open during the summer.”

“That’s my mother’s ice cream shop,” Emma announced and Charlie’s mouth dropped.

“No way!”

Emma nodded with a smile. “Yes, it is! I worked there during the summers when we came in from Augusta. We stayed at the cottage on that cliff that overlooked the ocean. Ingrid has sold it since then, but that’s where we lived during the summers.”

“Holy shit,” Charlie muttered as he ran his hand through his hair. “That’s insane.”

“Can I ask who your parents are?” Emma asked, even though she  _ knew _ .

“Mary Margaret and David Nolan.”

Emma gasped again and allowed herself to clasp her hand over her mouth. When Archie had told her that Charlie had been adopted by the Nolan’s, she didn’t make the connection in her mind. How many Nolan’s possibly lived in Maine? But hearing it come from Charlie threw Emma for a loop.

She had been close to David and Mary Margaret during those summers, since they were on break from the University of Maine. And during the school year, they would send letters to each other and they both would come visit Emma, Elsa, and Anna in Augusta. They had been high school sweethearts and no part of Emma was surprised that they had ended up making it. They had both graduated from college the summer Killian had come to town and they had moved back to town to care for David’s ailing mother.

They must know Charlie was Emma’s son.

They must know that Killian was his father.

“You know them?” Charlie asked quietly.

“I do,” Emma replied just as quietly. “I had no idea they had adopted you. I didn’t go back to Storybrooke after the summer before my senior year of high school.”

“So you had no idea what happened to me?”

Emma gulped back the knot in her throat. “I didn’t.”

“So you gave me up without a backward glance?” Charlie asked and she could hear the hurt in his voice.

“Charlie, it wasn’t easy for me to do it--”

“But you  _ did  _ and you didn’t care? You didn’t want to know that I was okay?” Charlie continued, his anger coming through. “You just gave me up and continued on with your life like I never existed?”

Emma wanted to correct him, but she knew he was right. She had thrown herself into exercise to lose the weight she had gained from the pregnancy. She wanted to forget that she had been pregnant and that she had given him up. She wanted to forget that summer and the way those blue eyes spoke to her soul. She had tried her hardest to forget the son she gave up and the almost love she lost.

“This was a mistake,” Charlie spoke, grabbing his bag from the ground and wrenching it onto his shoulder. He stood quickly from the bench and before Emma could say anything, he was gone.

And Emma was just left with her thoughts as she sat alone on the park bench, being left behind by the son she had left behind all those years ago.

<>

Needless to say, Emma needed a large drink after the meeting as she headed over to Elsa’s apartment. She trusted Henry to be left alone at their place, with Buttercup as his company and his dinner warming up in the oven. He was quite resourceful for a ten-year-old, and right now Emma was glad. She needed time to vent to her sister because the meeting did not go well and Emma just had no fucking idea about what to do next.

She didn’t want to lose Charlie again.

But if Charlie never wanted to see her again (and she would not blame him, after those details came to surface), Emma would have to respect his wishes.

Which she wasn’t entirely sure she would be able to do.

So as she marched up to Elsa’s apartment, with her red leather jacket on and her bag high on her shoulder and her boots clacking loudly against the tile of the building’s hallway, Emma thought about  _ what the fucking fuck she was going to do _ .

Emma didn’t bother knocking on Elsa’s door when she reached it. Emma just walked in, knowing that Elsa was home according to the text that told her that ten minutes previously. And when Emma arrived at the end of the entry hallway, she found Elsa sitting on her luxurious leather couch, with her knees crossed and her psychiatrist stare painted on her face. While staring at her sister, Emma grabbed the bottle of red wine from its place on her island and popped the cork off the already opened bottle, chugging three long pulls straight from the bottle.

“Interesting,” Elsa stated from her place on the couch, her chin resting on her fingertips. “I take it that the meeting didn’t go well?”

“Wonder what gave you that impression.”

Elsa drew her eyebrows together and pursed her lips as her hand dropped from her chin. “Don’t give me attitude. God knows I’ve already dealt with enough of that today.”

Emma let out an unladylike burp as she gripped the bottle and walked over to the loveseat sitting beside Elsa’s couch. “Sorry, but it was a doozy.”

“What happened?”

“Firstly, am I being charged hourly for this or is this  _ pro bono _ ?”

“ _ Emma _ \--”

“Oh  _ fine _ ,” Emma grunted as she placed the bottle on the wooden coffee table and wrenched off her boots. “It started off actually kinda well.”

“Go on.”

Emma sighed, hating it when Elsa turned all psychologist on her. “I almost ended up taking off because I could barely handle the nerves, but I heard someone call to me and I just knew it was him. I looked at him and... _ Elsa _ …” Emma trailed off because her heart simply ached too badly to recall that he looked just as Killian did eighteen years ago and how  _ hurt  _ he was by her admissions.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me everything immediately--”

“Just eventually--”

“What happened next?” Elsa asked as she ignored Emma’s interruption.

“We hugged, actually,” Emma replied and Elsa nodded, as if she wasn’t entirely surprised by the admission. “He cried. I nearly cried. Then we sat down and talked for a bit. I told him about Henry and you and Anna. He told me about his siblings and--” Emma paused to take a long chug from the bottle of wine, allowing the alcohol to slip down her throat and dull her senses. “He told me he lived in Storybrooke.”

Elsa’s eyes widened in shock. “For real?”

Emma chuckled because it was those moments when Elsa’s psychologist exterior dropped and revealed who she truly was that were Emma’s favorites. “Yep. Told him about Any Given Sundae and the cottage.” Emma sighed and reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose. “Then I had to ask who his parents were.”

“Who were they?”

“Mary Margaret and David.”

“No way,” Elsa spoke as she slid to the edge of the couch. “What did you say?”

“Well he could see by my reaction that I knew them, and that’s when shit went down hill,” Emma replied, placing the wine bottle back onto the coffee table. “He realized that I obviously didn’t know what happened to him after I gave him up and that I must’ve continued on like he never even existed.”

“Oof,” Elsa breathed out. “That is a doozy.”

“And I couldn’t argue with him because he was right, Elsa,” Emma replied, looking over at her sister. “You remember how I exercised day and night after he was born so I could forget it ever happened. And how I went off to college with my body looking like it did before I was even pregnant and I was just so happy to put it all behind me. I’ve spent the past eighteen years trying to forget that I ever had him, and it’s all come back to bite me in the ass.”

Elsa remained silent for a while as Emma turned to drink more wine from the bottle. She felt the alcohol beginning to dull her senses, which was exactly what she needed. She didn’t know if Charlie would ever want to see her again, and she just needed to dull the pain that she felt because she knew there was a high chance that he never would want to see her again.

“You’re not saying anything,” Emma pointed out after five minutes of silence. “No ‘he was wrong,’ or ‘everything will be okay?’”

Elsa sighed as she crossed her legs at the knees. “Emma, I can’t lie to you. He has a right to be angry and I can’t tell you that everything will be okay because there’s a chance that it won’t be.”

Emma nodded as she looked back at the now half-empty bottle of wine in her hand and Elsa continued. “I was there with you through all of that. I saw you hardly eat anything after you gave birth because you were so focused on forgetting that any of this happened and losing all of your baby weight. But I also remember you wanting to keep him so badly, but knowing that you couldn’t because you couldn’t do that to Ingrid or to him. Or even to yourself, even though you wouldn’t admit that. I remember hearing you cry every night for two months because you wanted your son so badly, but you didn’t have him.”

“Well, he doesn’t know that--”

“But  _ you _ know that.  _ You  _ know that you didn’t forget about him. You worried about him day and night, wondering if you made the right decision or if he was tossed into the system like you were,” Elsa replied, her hands holding Emma’s forearm. “If he doesn’t want to see you again, then you can’t do anything about it. It sucks, but that’s how it is. But if he chooses to come back, then you need to let him know how glad you are to have him in your life again and how you always wanted to know what happened to him.”

Emma took a deep breath and blinked away the tears that threatened to spill over. “Elsa, I don’t know if  _ I  _ can handle seeing him again, let alone on a daily basis.”

Elsa’s eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

Emma looked over at her sister and confessed, “He just--he looks so much like Killian, Elsa.”

“Oh Emma,” Elsa spoke softly and her hands tightened around Emma’s forearm.

“And I can’t even look at him without thinking about Killian. He’s a carbon copy of Killian, down to running his hands through that black mess of hair he has and the blue eyes. The only difference is that Charlie’s clean-shaven, but that’s so easily changed, and I can’t look at him without remembering what I did to Killian and how  _ awful _ of a person I am--”

“You can’t let that stop you,” Elsa replied. “If you let him in and suddenly he grows out his stubble and looks like Killian, you can’t suddenly break things off. Because he looked for you and he wants you in his life and if you push him away because of something like that, he will never come back to you. And you will kill yourself for doing that to him.”

“He’s gonna want to know about his father--”

“And you’ll deal with that when it comes to it,” Elsa stressed firmly. “You’ll have to. He deserves to know.”

Emma took a deep breath and stared up at the ceiling. “What if he’s angry with me?”

“Then you’ll have to deal with that too. With both of them. Because they both deserve to be angry, Emma. I know you meant well, but their emotions are valid.”

Emma nodded because she knew her sister was right. Charlie deserved to be angry with her. Killian deserved to angry with her. But they both deserved to know about the other. Emma promised herself that even if Charlie chose not to contact her again, she would tell Killian.

He deserved that much.


End file.
